Johnson County, Georgia
Pratt Cassity – Principal Investigator
Laura Kviklys – Project Coordinator
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Identified Resources in
Johnson County, Georgia
Findings
Summary
A total of 219 historic resources that meet and maintain
a minimum level of age, architectural integrity, and historic
significance were identified in unincorporated Johnson County.
These resources are primarily single family residential dwellings
(40%); the two most represented house types were the Central
Hallway Cottage (21.5%) and the Ranch House (10.1%). A
number of religious structures and sites remain extant in
Johnson County; front gable churches comprise 17.7% of the
building stock, and funerary sites or cemeteries were 25% of all
documented resources.
The construction date of all resources ranged from the
mid-1830s to the mid-1980s. The period with the most extant
resources is from 1900-1924 (30.9%), followed by 1930-1939
(8.2%).
Johnson County has a fairly good representation of extant
historic resources given its agricultural heritage. The disparate
location of these resources, paired with the overall integrity of
these structures do not indicate any potential National Historic
Landmarks or historic districts. These resources are typical of
unincorporated Georgia, with the bulk of residential structures
dating to the turn–of-the-twentieth-century, when Johnson
County saw a surge in population and agricultural production.
These structures are representative examples of southeastern
residential architecture
The Findit! Program housed at the Center for Community
Design and Preservation (CCDP) within the University of Georgia’s
College of Environment and Design (CED) conducted a Phase I
Historic Resource Survey of Johnson County, Georgia in July 2013.
Findit! Is a state-wide cultural resource survey program sponsored by
the Georgia Transmission Corporation (GTC) in partnership with
the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Historic Preservation
Division (GA SHPO). The project area covered the 305 square miles in
the unincorporated portions of the county. Johnson County is located
in middle south Georgia, and is bordered by Washington and Jefferson
counties to the north, Emanuel and Treutlen counties to the south and
east, and Laurens and Wilkinson counties to the south and west.
The resource survey was performed by historic graduate
students in the Historic Preservation program (MHP) and the Masters
of Landscape Architecture program (MLA) at the CED. The survey
consisted of historical and developmental research of the project area,
windshield and pedestrian field work, and data collection and analysis.
The information collected by the field survey was entered into
Georgia’s Natural, Archaeological, and Historic Resources Geographical
Information System, (GNARHGIS), a web-based geographical
information system designed to store and display information about
Georgia’s cultural resources. GNARHGIS is the repository for all of the
current statewide historic resources survey data. The survey information
was entered under survey ID 2221, “Findit Johnson County,” and can be
accessed at: https://www.gnahrgis.org/gnahrgis/index.do.
The University of Georgia
College of Environment + Design
Center for Community Design & Preservation
http://ced.uga.edu/pso
Field Surveyors:
Thomas Peters, Masters of Landscape Architecture
Sig Sandzen, Masters of Landscape Architecture Candidate
Johnson County,
Georgia 2013